Handbook of Psychological and Educational Assessment of Children: Intelligence, Aptitude, and Achievement

Now in an extensively revised and updated second edition, these essential volumes cover all aspects of child and adolescent assessment. Leading clinical scientists summarize the state of the science of assessment paradigms, instruments, and methods. With an emphasis on practical clinical considerations, chapters also delve into issues related to test development, psychometrics, and bias. Conveniently designed for reference or text use, this vast knowledge base has been synthesized into two volumes that may be purchased separately or together. Intelligence, Aptitude, and Achievement surveys assessment of intelligence, learning styles, and academic achievement; covers historical issues and psychometric methods; and addresses diversity issues, ethical concerns, and special topics in mental testing. Personality, Behavior, and Context reviews the use of projective methods, interviewing and observation, and objective methods of assessing personality and behavior; discusses the assessment of specific syndromes and symptoms; and presents tools for assessing adaptive skills and the family context.

THE POLITICAL BRAIN - The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

Author: Drew Westen

This groundbreaking investigation by a renowned psychologist and neuroscientist proves it: We vote with our hearts, not our minds

The Political Brain is a groundbreaking investigation into the role of emotion in determining the political life of the nation. For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists—and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt—and only one Republican has failed in that quest.

In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.

Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said—or could have said—in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years—such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how…

Drew Westen received his B.A. at Harvard, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex (England), and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he subsequently taught for six years. For several years he was Chief Psychologist at Cambridge Hospital and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He is a commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered" and lives in Atlanta.

The Citizen Solution: How You Can Make a Difference

By Harry C. Boyte

The Citizen Solution should be on every activist's book shelf -- consider it the practical progressive's Bible for making things happen. Really happen. As author Harry Boyte, senior fellow ast the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, says at one point, this is the kind of guidebook for people who work in the "world as it is" instead of "the world as it should be."

Based on a couple of decades' worth of organizing experience in the real-life experimental laboratory of Minnesota, a state long known as the incubator and trendsetter for innovative progressive policy, author Boyte draws both on his education learning at the feet of the inimitable Saul Alinsky, and the day-to-day lessons he's learned ... often about about learning from the constituencies he came to organize.

Running throughout the book is a basic trust in the local solution and a constant push for an expansion of just who should be involved in the mechanics of every-day democracy. This folk trust shows what modern populism can look like, stripped down and rebuilt differently in every community, according to regional issues and needs. Bursting with case histories and detailed interviews with organizers who've learned how to tread the line between idealism and pragmatism, incrementalism and impulsive change, this book outlines everything from how to run a neighborhood meeting on your street to how to find people in the overlooked "free spaces" that abound in any community ... if you know where to look for them.

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict

Author: Michael T Klare

From the oilfields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to the pipelines of Central Asia,Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations.

International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millennium, wars will be fought not over ideology but over access to dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremism stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on.

A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.

Review:

Having written and taught on the issue of resources and national security for many years, I approached the task of reviewing Resource Wars. The New Landscape of Global Conflict with substantial interest. I found that Michael Klare has written an uneven but topical text on strategic resources. It is valuable because it draws the attention of the national security community to the strategic importance of resource access in developing foreign policy, both as a requirement for economic growth and a potential source of conflict. It is seriously flawed because of the largely unsubstantiated assertions with which Professor Klare promotes the thesis that resources will be the dominant source of conflict in the 21st century.

Klare uses current resource conflicts to overstate the causal and predictive role of resources to future conflict. Readers familiar with the rigorous manner in which theories predicting state behavior are substantiated by security scholars will find his logic and conclusions debatable and may, as a result, fail to reconsider the role of resources in future conflict. Resources are important to security and have been so since events were first recorded. Nations migrated in search of water, arable land, food, and the resources necessary to sustain national vitality, often displacing or fighting with other peoples. As civilization evolved, resources figured prominently in political-military strategy: Cornwall, for example, was important to Rome as a source of tin; technological evolution created new resources, such as the components of gunpowder and the metal alloys necessary to produce superior weapons. The industrial revolution led to the mechanization of warfare, which substantially increased strategic resourc es. As Hans Morgenthau articulated in his influential work Politics Among Nations, "National power has become more and more dependent upon the control of raw materials in peace and war."

Although not discussed in detail in the book, World War II served as a case study in the importance of resources to national security. Karl Haushofer's concepts of lebensraum and autarky stressed the salience of resource access and self sufficiency to state power. Access to petroleum was a primary interest of Japanese and German strategy. And, of course, the Belgian Congo became essential to the US war strategy when its uranium deposits provided the fuel for the US nuclear program.

The study of resource-related issues during World War II and the Cold War--and the academic debate over their relevance--has been a dominant theme of national security literature for decades and would seem to be important to any book titled Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Conflict. However, very little of the rich history of resource wars surfaces in Dr. Klare's text. In fact, the author ignores the Cold War role that resources played in the competition for economic growth and power when he writes, "With the end of the Cold War, resource issues reassumed their central role in US military planning."

Interestingly, these assertions are not necessary to make the point that resources underpin the vitality of the United States and are essential to meet the demands placed on the political systems of most states. One need not assert that armies around the world are "redefining resource scarcity as their primary mission" to suggest that access to resources may well trigger conflict in regions where existing tensions, intra-state or international, already exist. Similarly, the author omits discussions of the powerful role resources played in influencing the African policies of the superpowers during the Cold War, while quoting the isolated Africa policy statements of the Clinton Administration to suggest that Africa is assuming a new, central position of strategic importance because of resource deposits. Further, ignoring the Breton Woods agreements, the critical role of economics to free world viability, the focus on industrial output as a measure of power in East-West competition, the rise of economics as a do minant variable in security studies in the 1 980s and agreements such as NAFTA, the author writes that economics became central to US national security only with the Clinton Administration. Such astounding assertions raise red flags for readers of security studies who are used to carefully worded, well-substantiated arguments. These assertions detract markedly from an otherwise interesting book.

The first and last chapters of Resource Wars are designed to promote Dr. Klare's central thesis: "Resource wars will become... the most distinctive feature of the global security environment." The last chapter, surprisingly, was excerpted in Foreign Affairs. Of the remaining seven chapters, four discuss oil, two discuss water, and one chapter briefly addresses minerals and timber. There are good summaries of many of the well-known resource issues and hot spots, such as the Persian Gulf and the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates rivers. However, Professor Klare does not convince the reader that resources can predict conflict. The book would have been much more valuable if it included chapters on food and arable land, strategic industrial resources, population, and resource wars literature, and if it discussed at length the roles of technology, economics, and the environment in affecting the quantity of resources. The book is worthy of inclusion in college library collections because of the current dearth of books on re sources and conflict. Unfortunately, it lacks the breadth of subject matter, rigor, and scholarly review of resource and security literature to recommend including it in the collection of a national security scholar or selection as a course text.

Western Diseases

New from Cambridge University Press: Western Diseases: An Evolutionary Perspective by Tessa M. Pollard.

About the book, from the publisher:

As a group, western diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, allergies and mental health problems constitute one of the major problems facing humans at the beginning of the 21st century, particularly as they extend into poorer countries. An evolutionary perspective has much to offer standard biomedical understandings of western diseases. At the heart of this approach is the notion that human evolution occurred in circumstances very different from the modern affluent western environment and that, as a consequence, human biology is not adapted to the contemporary western environment. Written with an anthropological perspective and aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduates taking courses in the ecology and evolution of disease, Tessa Pollard applies and extends this evolutionary perspective by analysing trends in rates of western diseases and providing a new synthesis of current understandings of evolutionary processes, and of the biology and epidemiology of disease.

Just How Stupid Are We?

New from Basic Books: Just How Stupid Are We?: Facing the Truth about the American Voter by Rick Shenkman.

About the book, from the publisher:

Levees break in New Orleans. Iraq descends into chaos. The housing market teeters on the brink of collapse. Americans of all political stripes are heading into the 2008 election with the sense that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. But what exactly? Democrats blame Republicans and Republicans blame Democrats. Greedy corporate executives, rogue journalists, faulty voting machines, irresponsible defense contractors-we blame them, too. The only thing everyone seems to agree on, in fact, is that the American people are entirely blameless. In Just How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian and renowned myth-buster Rick Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. The hard truth is that American democracy is more direct than ever-but voters are misusing, abusing, and abdicating their political power. Americans are paying less and less attention to politics at a time when they need to pay much more: Television has dumbed politics down to the basest possible level, while the real workings of politics have become vastly more complicated. Shenkman offers concrete proposals for reforming our institutions-the government, the media, civic organizations, political parties-to make them work better for the American people. But first, Shenkman argues, we must reform ourselves.

Innovation and Inequality

Author: Gilles Saint-Paul.

About the book, from the publisher:

Karl Marx predicted a world in which technical innovation would increasingly devalue and impoverish workers, but other economists thought the opposite, that it would lead to increased wages and living standards--and the economists were right. Yet in the last three decades, the market economy has been jeopardized by a worrying phenomenon: a rise in wage inequality that has left a substantial portion of the workforce worse off despite the continuing productivity growth enjoyed by the economy. Innovation and Inequality examines why.

Studies have firmly established a link between this worrying trend and technical change, in particular the rise of new information technologies. In Innovation and Inequality, Gilles Saint-Paul provides a synthetic theoretical analysis of the most important mechanisms by which technical progress and innovation affect the distribution of income. He discusses the conditions under which skill-biased technical change may reduce the wages of the least skilled, and how improvements in information technology allow "superstars" to increase the scale of their activity at the expense of less talented workers. He shows how the structure of demand changes as the economy becomes wealthier, in ways that may potentially harm the poorest segments of the workforce and economy. An essential text for graduate students and an indispensable resource for researchers, Innovation and Inequality reveals how different categories of workers gain or lose from innovation, and how that gain or loss crucially depends on the nature of the innovation.

Loneliness as a Way of Life

Author: Thomas Dumm

About the book, from the publisher:

“What does it mean to be lonely?” Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry, documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory, literature, and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden dimension of the human condition. His book shows how loneliness shapes the contemporary division between public and private, our inability to live with each other honestly and in comity, the estranged forms that our intimate relationships assume, and the weakness of our common bonds.

A reading of the relationship between Cordelia and her father in Shakespeare’s King Lear points to the most basic dynamic of modern loneliness—how it is a response to the problem of the “missing mother.” Dumm goes on to explore the most important dimensions of lonely experience—Being, Having, Loving, and Grieving. As the book unfolds, he juxtaposes new interpretations of iconic cultural texts—Moby-Dick, Death of a Salesman, the film Paris, Texas, Emerson’s “Experience,” to name a few—with his own experiences of loneliness, as a son, as a father, and as a grieving husband and widower.

Written with deceptive simplicity, Loneliness as a Way of Life is something rare—an intellectual study that is passionately personal. It challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way. To fail to do so, this book reveals, will only intensify the power that it holds over us.

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

Author: Andrew J. Bacevich

The Limits of Power identifies a profound triple crisis facing America: the economy, in remarkable disarray, can no longer be fixed by relying on expansion abroad; the government, transformed by an imperial presidency, is a democracy in form only; U.S. involvement in endless wars, driven by a deep infatuation with military power, has been a catastrophe for the body politic. These pressing problems threaten all of us, Republicans and Democrats. If the nation is to solve its predicament, it will need the revival of a distinctly American approach: the neglected tradition of realism.

Andrew J. Bacevich, uniquely respected across the political spectrum, offers a historical perspective on the illusions that have governed American policy since 1945. The realism he proposes includes respect for power and its limits; sensitivity to unintended consequences; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that the books will have to balance. Only a return to such principles, Bacevich argues, can provide common ground for fixing America’s urgent problems before the damage becomes irreparable.

Making Government Work

Author: Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings

"Performance is better than promise" has long been the motto of Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, a former Governor of South Carolina and six-term U.S. Senator who has distinguished himself as a stalwart advocate of fiscally responsible progressive programs. In this political memoir, Hollings takes aim at our increasingly flawed political system and a government that has gone "into the ditch." As remedy he pulls antidotes from anecdotes about his personal experiences in making government work in spite of itself for the past half century.
Hollings's long political career speaks volumes about the potential of the elected and the electorate to use government for the good of all. As South Carolina's Governor in the early 1960s, Hollings oversaw the social transition of the state into the civil rights era and from an agriculture-based economy to an industry-based system with international partnerships. In the U.S. Senate from 1966 to 2005, he took point on shepherding new policies to address hunger, environmental conservation, energy consumption, communications, international trade, campaign finance, the federal budget, space exploration, and national defense. Hollings's instructive recollections of these efforts form a user's manual for our representative democracy as he shares compelling—and often candidly colorful—accounts of the smart stewardship of resources and authority needed to enact policies that make positive differences in the lives of Americans.
Confrontational at times toward those issues and institutions he cites as responsible for knocking government off course, Hollings lays out clearly his deep commitment to improving our system of government, strengthening regulations on free trade, countering dependence on campaign contributions, and enhancing our communications and education programs to compete better in an information-driven global marketplace. This prescriptive compendium of sound thinking from an experienced agent of change seeks to reinvigorate a floundering system and actively calls good people and good ideas back into the service of America's bright future.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings has enjoyed a remarkable career in public service as a South Carolina legislator (1949–1954), Lieutenant Governor (1955–1959), Governor (1959–1963), U.S. Senator (1966–2005), and U.S. presidential candidate (1983–1984). A visionary workhorse, Hollings has focused throughout his career on putting government on a sound financial basis and promoting economic development to create opportunities. Recognized as a policy expert on the budget, telecommunications, the environment, defense, trade, and space, he is the author of the Coastal Zone Management Act (1972), the Ocean Dumping Act (1972), and the Automobile Fuel Economy Act (1975) and coauthor of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act (1985). Hollings led in the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children in 1972 and passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Kirk Victor covers the U.S. Senate for the National Journal and was part of a reporting team that won a National Headliner Award in 2005 for coverage of Congress. A native of Savannah, Georgia, Victor has a law degree from the Antioch School of Law and a M.S. degree in journalism from Columbia University.
REVIEWS
"Making Government Work is an accurate accounting of the key role Fritz Hollings played in dealing with the major legislative and political challenges of the day as a South Carolina Governor and U.S. Senator. While elements of the book reflect Senator Hollings's partisan views, it more importantly recounts his bipartisan efforts on vital issues such as hunger, budget, and defense. Only Hollings could make such a compelling case on how to make government work. His straightforward style will appeal to anyone interested in the inner workings of government."—Bob Dole
"In the U.S. Senate, Fritz Hollings was known for his candor. In this engaging memoir he demonstrates that he's still telling it like it is! In direct no-nonsense language, Hollings describes his remarkable political career of nearly a half century of service to the people of South Carolina and the nation. Whether you agree or disagree with him on the issues, when you finish this lively book, you'll agree that Fritz Hollings was an extraordinary Senator and public servant."—George J. Mitchell
"Fritz Hollings, the keenest wit in the Senate and a grand storyteller, reveals how the people's business gets done; why big money, nonstop news cycles, polling, and armies of costly consultants produce only deadlock; and what we can do to make our government work again. Every voter should read this book."—Richard J. Whalen
"Throughout his remarkable career, Fritz Hollings distinguished himself as a commonsense statesman and a responsible, effective servant to our state and country. Still showing his trademark wit and wisdom, Hollings treats us to an insider's candid retrospective on how government forged successes in the past, as well as a compelling vision of how it can be made to serve the people's interests better in the future. Hollings has given us an owner's manual for operating our democracy in the twenty-first century, and every American can benefit from his insightful message."